MAKING A LIVING AND DOING GOOD DEEDS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 8, 1993                   TAG: 9304080472
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: S-14   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: WENDI GIBSON RICHERT STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
MAKING A LIVING AND DOING GOOD DEEDS - ALL AT THE SAME TIME
Tony Haupt works in a grocery store and has for 17 years.
After the 33-year-old clerk clocks out for the day, he goes home and then goes back to the grocery store.
Not because he loves his work, necessarily. And not because he's out of bread and toilet paper. But because Tony Haupt is moonlighting.
Haupt has made a business out of buying groceries for other people. For a price, you can give him your grocery list and send him on his way - insured, licensed and bonded - to the grocer of your choice.
"I'm a people person," Haupt says when asked why he started his business, Easy Shop, in January.
Haupt says he wants to help others, particularly those who can't get to the supermarket.
He learned of the need for a grocery-shopping business during his many trips to downtown Roanoke's American Red Cross, where he volunteers and donates platelets. There, he informally surveyed older folks, asking what routine service would help them most in their daily lives. He discovered that many people have no transportation to the grocery store or help getting their groceries into their homes.
"It's needed," he says of Easy Shop.
But Haupt also is prepared to go shopping for those who simply don't want to fool with crowded parking lots, long lines and crowded aisles. One of his clients, in fact, is a single mother without time to spend in a grocery store.
"If I could afford to . . . volunteer," Haupt says, "I would." But Haupt has special plans for his new income, plans that did influence his decision to break into the small-business sector. He says he'll deposit some of his Easy Shop income into a savings account for his 3-month-old granddaughter, to give her a "nest egg" for the future.
Because his business is so new, Haupt says, he's not making much money. He has four regular customers - two on his month-to-month plan, two who call him when they need him.
The hardest part of setting up his business, he says, has been publicity. He printed business cards and ran a classified ad in a newspaper. And he ran off fliers and sought permission from apartments, coin laundries, retirement homes and churches to place them on cars parked in their lots.
The flier targets its audience with these eye-catching words: "Long Lines At The Checkout? No Parking Spaces Available? No Time To Do The Shopping? Unable To Shop! Call Easy Shop. You call! I Deliver!"
Haupt bills his trade as "Grocery shopping done easy," and includes a number on the flier where he can be reached.
On the reverse side is his contract, which lists his fees: $30 per trip, or $125 per month, which includes four grocery trips. That price is in addition to the cost of the groceries, and helps cover the cost of his business license, transportation, Roanoke County bonding and extra insurance he took out when forming the business.
While the hardest part of keeping his business running has been getting the word out that he's available; the easiest part, he laughs, was applying and getting his delivery service license - "a lot of paperwork" - and a $30 fee from Roanoke County.
"Really, there was nothing to it. I got this license in about 15 minutes."
Haupt says he's different from other grocery deliverers because he can go to any store and buy anything and any brand. Others are limited, he says, to certain brands or don't buy certain kinds of products.
On one recent trip, a customer requested a hair dryer. Haupt was unable to find one in the supermarket, but ran next door to a drug store to get one, at no extra charge.
And, Haupt reasons that because he went to the trouble of getting bonded and insured, he's someone folks can count on. One client even declared "I trust you" after learning he was a grandfather.
Seeing the "smiling faces" of his customers after he relieves them of the grocery-buying chore is what makes Easy Shop worth returning to a crowded store on his day off.
"I'm a people person," Haupt repeats. "I'd much rather see somebody happy than to see somebody sad."
Tony Haupt can be reached at 890-1087.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB